After being released from federal custody, journalist Don Lemon is finally detailing the moments leading to his arrest and what he claims were the shocking motivations behind it.
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Lemon appeared on “Jimmy Kimmel Live!” Monday (Feb. 2) night– just days after he was arrested by the FBI. We previously told you Lemon and another independent journalist, Georgia Fort, were taken into custody after reporting live from an anti-ICE protest going down inside a Minneapolis church. Their arrests drew major backlash as Trump’s handling of ICE continues to face national scrutiny.
The former CNN anchor told Kimmel he was returning to his hotel in Los Angeles when he was arrested. “I was walking up to the room, and I pressed the elevator button, and then all of a sudden, I feel myself being jostled and people trying to grab me and put me in handcuffs,” Lemon said.
Lemon was set to cover the Grammys happening days later, but instead he was rushed by officers. He told Kimmel he had no clue who the men were there to detain him.
“I said, ‘What are you doing here?’ And they said, ‘We came to arrest you.’ And I said, ‘Who are you?’ And then finally, they identified themselves,” the journalist continued. He eventually demanded to see a warrant, which none of the officers had. An FBI agent eventually showed up with the warrant for Lemon’s arrest on his cell phone and took him into custody.
Around that same time, journalist Fort began live streaming federal officers who came to her home in Minneapolis to arrest her. In the footage, several agents can be seen circling Fort’s house before she’s instructed to come outside. Both journalists were released on Friday (Jan. 30).
Lemon told Kimmel all of the manpower used to arrest them was a complete waste of time and money. “It had to be maybe a dozen people, which is a waste, Jimmy, of resources,” Lemon said about the federal presence during his arrest.
“Because I had told them weeks before, maybe once or twice… that I could just go in, and they didn’t have to be– the folks that were just working there that day, and they didn’t have to have all of these people following me around,” he added.
According to Lemon, it’s all in efforts to scare him. “They want that. They want to embarrass you. They want to intimidate you,” the reporter said. “They want to instill fear, and so that’s why they did it that way.”
Fort and Lemon are two of nine people accused of violating federal law during a Jan. 18 demonstration at a church. The court did not ask Lemon to enter a plea, and he was released without bond, according to the New York Times. Outside the courtroom, Lemon promised not to stop covering the news. His arraignment is scheduled for Feb. 9 in Minneapolis.
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